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New anthology chronicles Florida’s ‘hope, movement and future’
For the cover of Florida Humanities’ new anthology book Once Upon a Time in Florida: Stories of Life in the Land of Promises, editor Jacki Levine chose a painting by Leslie Ragan, a 20th century artist and illustrator best known for stylized depictions of trains moving speedily across American landscapes.
In Ragan’s The Champion, a sleek silver train bullets alongside the ocean – a sailing freighter on the horizon – past colorful flowers and swaying palm trees.
“That painting says to me the hope, the movement and the future of Florida,” says Levine, who edited Florida Humanities’ Forum magazine from 2017 to 2021. “It’s very aspirational, but it’s also – you don’t know what the future holds. And I liked I because there were no people in there that were one group. Because Florida is so diverse, and so many people have come together, and it’s everybody’s story.”
Drawn from the magazine’s vast archive, the lavishly-illustrated Once Upon a Time in Florida includes 50 stories from nearly 50 Florida writers, many of them well-known. Contributors from the Tampa Bay area – at one time or another – include Jon Wilson, Gary Mormino, Betty Jean Steinshouer, Jeff Klinkenberg, Eric Deggans, Bill Maxwell, Craig Pittman, Dalia Colon, Tom Hallock, Peter B. Gallagher and the late Terry Tomalin.
Full disclosure: This reporter has a story in there, too.
Jacki Levine
“We were so lucky,” Levine says. “Out of 800, 1,000 stories that I found in the archives, I had to keep going back, over and over. Because it wasn’t so much choosing good ones, because so many of them were good. It was, how do you eliminate? How do you cull it down?”
It’s not a history book, exactly, but it is a history of Florida, with chronologically-arranged chapters about the complex environment, arts and literature, native peoples, the state’s natural wonders (Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jack E. Davis contributes two pieces) and more.
And it’s not all sunshine and oranges. In a section titled All Things Unequal Under the Sun, Bill Maxwell and Beverly Coyle individually chronicle some painful realities about the state. Forum editors in the 1990s commissioned the pieces for a study in contrasts they called Parallel Lives.
“They recruited Bill, as Black man who grew up in Jim Crow Florida, and Beverly, who grew up in pretty much the same time and place, as the young white daughter of a pastor,” Levine explains. “And their experiences were, pardon the expression, as different as black and white.”
For all the key historical moments depicted, dissected and delivered in the pages, Levine felt that including these two stories was a no-brainer. “They each wrote a story paralleling their experiences. And they wrote about them so honestly, and vividly, I thought they were important stories to be read by Floridians.”
Some have referred to Once Upon a Time as “a love letter to Florida.” Not exactly, says Levine. “It is a love story in that there’s a deep love of Florida that flows through it, but I would also say it’s not an infatuation. It’s more of the unconditional love you have for a family member, with all their flaws – and their wonderful gifts.”
The book’s publication is timed to the 50th anniversary of Florida Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
It is a reflection of its editor, who worked on it for two years, tweaking and changing and fretting and getting it just right – and the nearly 50 writers who lent their voices to the living, breathing and ever-growing mountain of Florida literature.
“There were so many anthologies available in those archives,” reflects Levine. “It could have been history, it could have been literature, food … so many. But because it’s a celebration of Florida Humanities’ 50th anniversary, I thought it should have an historical overview kind of feel.”
Once Upon a Time in Florida: Stories of Life in the Land of Promises is available locally at Tombolo Books, and via Amazon and Florida Humanities.
